CINDERS
by spittlepig
Summary: Today. The Reign Will End.
1. Beast Dancing

TITLE: Cinders  
AUTHOR: Ananova Crowe and J.I.A.  
  
what do we do when we wake?  
  
...keep both eyes on the sky...  
  
what do we do when we sleep?  
  
...keep one eye on the sky...  
  
what do we do when we see him?  
  
...dig hard. dig deep. run for shelter. and never look back...  
  
  
Northumberland, England 2021   
  
  
"Shit..." she hissed, wiping away the trickle of blood from her busted lip with her wrist, gun in hand. She checked other wounds, a huge gash running the length of her forearm from where the claws had penetrated her and a nice show of green bruises beginning to show themselves on her knees, elbows and face.  
  
But it didn't matter that she was cut up and bruised, she was beautiful in the strangest way. Her mocha skin was moist with sweat, taught flesh pulled over smooth curved bones. Lush, chocolate-red lips with a broad candy nose and thunderclap gray eyes bore holes through your soul. Black dreadlocks cornrowed the top of her head, sowed with beads and old trinkets pulled back to a flow of floor-length black hair that matted a blanket across her shoulders and naked torso, covering not enough.   
  
But what really caught the entranced eye, were the strange designs tattooed into her smooth, coffee flesh. The curling, rigid tattoos were as white as milk and as bright as the lining of an eclipse, glowing themselves beyond explanation. White silver. They shown through the mud and soil, glowing, enthralling. A rising spiral curled beneath her ribs, cuffs of lines and circles wound around her fore and aftarms, more cuffs rounding her shins and sleek thighs that were barely visible through the makeshift sheet clipped around her as a skirt. A garish handmade belt held little up, a laced gun sling held slack in front of her crotch, empty. Her shoes were the most modern things she possessed save the gun, they were work boots, brown and worn by mud and work, looking two sizes too big and laced too tight to notice.  
  
She tilted the grimy glass a little, examining her dirty reflection. She didn't look like she remembered last, she looked...worn. Time was beginning to catch up with her, even though she was only 20, she was beginning to look older. Damn all the smoke. It was reeking havoc on her flesh.  
  
She dropped the glass and rolled onto her back, resting there, looking at the top of the metal sheet she was under. She'd been lying under that thing for the past two and a half hours, making sure the very scent of the beast was gone from the air. When she was sure it was, she gently began to crawl out from beneath the metal, poking out her head to look. It was nowhere in sight.  
  
Relieved she raised herself and crawled slowly out on her hands and knees, in case it was just waiting behind a corner. Slowly, carefully she rose herself to her feet, hand itchy at the haft of her gun, eyes vagrant.   
  
Sensing no danger, she bent and grabbed her sheepskin-lined vest, pulling it over her lithe torso and fastening it tight to keep warm. With two clicks of her tongue and a rising whistle, there was a clutter of movement from behind her, turning to see a mud-caked black Shire rise up from the ground like a god. Golden hair was thrown wildly as it clopped over to her, not a whinny or a whine as it had been taught and lived by.  
  
The girl raised her arm to it, patting its broad head gently and grabbing it by the reigns. It nuzzled her shoulder, dipping in to bump it with its nose.   
  
"Is the beast really gone, Cricket?" She asked gently, her eyes watching the darkened skies that had become nothing more than a vat of gray smoke. Birds no longer flew overhead, pretty much all of them extinct anyway. But the sky didn't belong to the beasts. The humans wouldn't let them have that.  
  
The horse stamped as the girl jumped and pulled herself up into the sloped back of the horse, the reigns loose in her hands. She'd has this horse since she was a little girl, she'd raised it herself. And they would do anything with each other.  
  
With a gentle kick, the horse began forward, both cautious to watch everything around them as they made their way across the barren, dusty, gray world. Everything seemed to be at peace here, maybe this would have been a good place for her.  
  
With that thought, a huge, spine-jolting noise erupted from across the hilltop of the ravine, a deadly cry that heeded no warnings.  
  
Cricket and the girl ran hard, Cricket's legs pounding into the earth like sledgehammers, leaving depressions as he ran. The girl snapped her head back, only to see a great shadow rise over the bright spot of the sun in the surrounding smoke. The beast had been hiding behind the hilltop.  
  
"Bastard!" She said, turning to duck low against the back of the horse's neck, hands tight on its wheat blonde main, thighs tucked tight into Cricket's barreled belly. A thousand pound of muscles had never seen movement so fast, the mix of the best race horse in Scotland and the strongest farm horse of Ireland's green hills were bred to make this horse, this one perfect horse that was the ultimate key, the only key, to this girl's survival.  
  
The dragon gave another screaming belch, the girl pulling sharply on the reigns and dogging the horse to the side as a huge blue flame ignited a line right where they had been, roasting the ground of ash.  
  
The girl could see strange, but familiar shadows above on the ridge, headstones marked with floating cloths and the bent carcass of some great metallic satellite. It was bent and twisted, as if a great creature had smashed against it. Graveyards meant that there were other humans close by, or at least the place they had stayed.  
  
The great wind of the beast's wings and the bumpy run was enough to knock her off the horse, but she had been doing this for years, and had grown accustomed to the rigorous riding it took to get places. Everyone had.  
  
The horse whinnied protest as she drove it head-first up the steep embankment of the ash depression, hooves digging deep into soft ground, trying to find footing. Legs lurched as the ground gave way beneath the horse, making it find new leverage. Without looking back, the girl knew the beast was gaining, so she kicked the horse harder with muddied boots, slapping the reigns against its great neck, pushing on a desperate horse.  
  
Finally, the horse made it up from the wall of ash, eyes wild, breath loud as she paused it slightly at the top of the hill, eyes seeking until she found it. With a sharp kick, the sent the horse down the steep slope in a full gallop, everything around them becoming a great river of black and gray.  
  
The beast was once again gaining though; the sound of the wind breaking over its huge, scaled flesh was like nothing she had ever heard before.   
  
The ruined castle was close now, she could see the man addled front gate and the empty observation deck almost clearly. She kicked her horse one more hard time, wanting the horse to give it everything it had and more.  
  
Speed became a sound as they dogged it to the castle's front gate. The horse breathing hard as the girl turned, only to be meters away from the gaping jaws of the beast, actually able to see the two chemicals being released from the tubes on each side of its mouth. Creating its own, natural napalm. Just as the beast exhaled, the girl snapped the horses reigns hard to the right, and to an unlucky dead stop.  
  
Her body flew a good thirty feet before slamming hard into the wall, sliding down to lay sprawled somewhat upright, watching as her horse made a run for her, turned, saw the beast's fire coming, and reared.  
  
The smell of burning hide and meat suddenly choked the air and she had to cover her face and look away. Then came a sound that would haunt her mind forever, the great snap of a god's spine and the tearing of a god's flesh and the screaming cry of a god raped her ears, followed by a loud, wet thump as something splashed the ash from the ground onto her.   
  
Then there was no noise. Except the retreating of wings.  
  
Her hands shook like madness as she uncovered her face, shocked to see the horror in front of her. The injustice.   
  
There laid Cricket, head facing her, neck bleeding from the dragon's claw, flesh burned and sloughing away from cooked muscle, mane burnt completely off, the lower half of his body gone. Gone.  
  
Nothing remained of his hindquarters, except the wet, pale lumps of his intestines and a huge pool of blackened blood.  
  
Her eyes began to water as she jumped up, running towards the skyline that no longer feigned the great, poaching dragon in its bowels.  
  
There was a wet cry and she wiped away her tears as she turned, facing her half horse, that was still alive.  
  
Cricket's big, brown eyes were wild with fear, blood spewing from his mouth each time he tried to call out. A gray green puss began to grow in his eyes, the same lurching around the corners of his mouth, blackened tongue lashing out into the biting air.  
  
The girl trudged slowly towards her raging, unnerved steed, front legs still kicking wildly to rise, burnt lungs still willing to breathe.  
  
The girl knelt down to the horse slowly, reaching out to stroke its face reassuringly. She would put him at ease. She rose and pulled the gun from the crotch pocket of her belt, loading a bullet into the chamber.  
  
"Thank you boy." She said.  
  
And pulled the trigger. 


	2. Pulling Gods Asunder

Pulling Gods Asunder.  
Day Two - Inside The Castle  
  
Quinn Abercromby coughed painfully and gently sat up, careful not to disturb the sling of his wrist too much. The pain hurt bad, and he had nothing to relieve it except his mind. Carefully, he rose from his cot, leaning mostly on his good leg as he hobbled across the dark, cold room, leaving his makeshift crutch at his bedside.   
  
He hadn't slept all night, in fact, he hadn't slept at all for the past three weeks. The incident was too fresh in his mind, his wounds too fresh. Every time he would close his eyes, he would see the beast again, coming at him, ready to eat. Then he would awaken to the pain.   
  
He made his way over into the dugout in the wall that served as a bathroom, reaching over with his good hand to light a match from the book and light the mirror-side candle, flinching back at his reflection.  
  
He looked like hell.  
  
The gashes and small flecks of burnt skin on his neck had begun to fully heal over, tender pink skin showing against fire tanned flesh. His right forearm wound white with cloth, old blood soaked through and dead. The entire upper part of his torso was wrapped in a thick, handmade gauze, tucked beneath his armpits. And slung around his neck was his wrist, pulled tight to lay against the top of his chest for support and protection, burnt portions wrapped thoroughly. From his reflection, he looked pretty bad, bruising and gashes discoloring his skin into a portrait of pain. But other wounds lay beyond his vision of harm, his right leg, from the ankle up to his thigh was bandaged and held straight with a vertical board, wrapped with cloth to catch slivers.  
  
He brought his hand up to touch his face, callused fingers moving over sweat-smoothed flesh and beard. He felt like hell.  
  
There was a knock at the door, and he turned to face the reflection of Serena, standing ready in the doorway. A big pot was in her hand, tilted against her jutted hip, with towels thrown over her shoulder.  
  
"Are you alright?" She asked, pretty, pale eyes nudging him. He was used to her coming in; after all, she had been the only face he'd seen for the past three weeks. Besides his own, and the dead.  
  
He looked at her emotionless before bowing his head and shuffled back towards his bed. He sat down slowly, grimacing at everything that sang out in his body.  
  
"Quinn?" She came over, shutting the door behind her, and laid the bowl down, catching her fingers on his forehead, then moving them down to touch the back of her hand to his cheek. He felt hot, but not alarmingly so.  
  
"I'm fine." He whispered, eyes closed and head towards the floor.   
  
She gave him another look before kneeling down in front of him, her hands on his knees, before lifting his chin with her crooked finger, bringing wet, painful eyes up to hers, before he pulled his head away.   
  
She tucked her lips, rising to kiss him on the top of the head. "I'm sorry, Quinn."   
  
Instead of leaving him to his state of mourn, she sat down next to him, waiting.  
  
He knew why she was waiting, but he didn't want to do it right now. He didn't feel good. He watched her out of the corner of his eye, pulling a pair of scissors from the pouch about her waist, as well as a big role of dressing.  
  
She raised her hand to stroke his cheek with her fingers, preparing him for what he knew was coming.  
  
With a heavy sigh, he turned to her, eyes still closed, then opening them, but choosing not to see anything.  
  
"Lay back." She said softly, carefully, she untied the sling from around his neck and put his hand back down to his side, hearing him sigh from the tight muscles in his arm. She then cut away his chest bandaging, uncovering a smell that took them both by surprise. Quinn raised his head, but Serena gently pushed it back down, thinking it better that he did not see it.  
  
The smell of rotting flesh almost made her sick to her stomach, but she pushed it down and reached into her pouch, pulling out the iodine bottle Alex had given him a while back. The only sterilizer they had.   
  
"Quinn?" She looked up to his relaxing face, about to break his mask. She stroked his hair from his eyes, looking him in the face. "I have to use the iodine." She watched his face fall slightly, before he turned away from her.  
  
She remembered using the iodine on his wounds before, but then again, she had put him under with ether. Now she didn't have any ether.   
  
Looking back up at the wound, she could tell why it smelled. Above the large, almost perfectly straight line of green, gray, and blue bruising was a buildup of puss from a puncture wound. One that curled the edge of his broken flesh into an almost cave for the bacteria to live in, which was now open with leaking bodily fluids, eaten away. The bacterium was consuming his flesh.   
  
When the satellite tower had fallen, the metal struts had caught him right across the chest and legs, pinning him to the ground, smashing his left hand awkwardly, folded against his side. The puncture wound had come from the metal strut that had broken loose amidst the falling, coming like a dagger with the beam to breach his chest, right above his heart. Luckily, it had not pierced anything but his skin.  
  
She took a fresh towel and unscrewed the bottle, pouring the iodine onto it, soaking her hand. It tingled, but that's because she had no open wounds. To him, this would hurt like hell.  
  
She waited for him to take a breath before pressing it onto the foul smelling wound. He jumped, eyes clamping shut and jaw clenched tight, his good hand rolled immediately into a fist, fingers digging into his palm, wanting desperately to draw blood.  
  
Working quickly, she drowned a towel and replaced the iodine laced one, the grip on his hand beginning to loosen. She looked up as he opened his eyes, seeing them hoard with tears. His jaw unclenching.  
  
She stood from her crouched position at his side and put the another wet rag to his forehead. He closed his eyes again and turned away. "It wasn't that bad you big baby." She smiled.  
  
There was a tiny knock at the door. Quinn turned to her, then the door.   
  
Serena left his side and opened it, looking down to see little Madeline clutching her favorite book against her little body. The one Quinn had given to her after he'd found her hiding in the garden alone one night two years ago. "Can Quinn come out now?" She asked softly, peeking around the corner of the door, past Serena.  
  
"I'm sorry Madi, but he's resting right now. Why don't you come back later?" Serena looked back at his resting frame, only to get a tug at her pants.  
  
"But I'm scared of the dragons." Her big doe eyes were enough to bring a mountain to tears. "And besides, he hasn't read to me in a whole year! We always read!" She pulled her head back and threw down her arms, trying to make her overzealous point.  
  
"Madi." Serena put a hand on her little brunette head. "He's not feeling well honey, he can't read to you now. Just come back-" but she was cut off by a voice behind her.  
  
"It's alright. I can read." Quinn said quietly, but loud enough to be heard. Serena gave him a glance. "She's right," he said, smiling weakly, "I owe her."  
  
Madeline jumped for joy, pushing past Serena's legs to run to Quinn, jumping up onto the bed. Bad idea.  
  
Quinn cried out. Madeline froze.  
  
"Madi, honey, you have to be careful." Serena came towards Quinn, gently touching him on the shoulder, but looking Madi in the eye.  
  
"What happened?" Her little eyes suddenly were crowded with worry as she sat down carefully beside him; her hands folded in her lap. Trying not to move.   
  
"Do you remember when the metal tower fell down?" Serena asked, helping Quinn up from his lying position, just in time, as Madi stood up and threw her hands out in mimic. "With the dragon?! And then it came at him and it smashed into the tower! And Quinn caught it and held it up!" Her eyes were aglow with excitement, getting a rise out of Quinn, one no one had seen in what seemed like ages.  
  
"Well," Serena's smile softened, "Quinn got hurt."  
  
Madi's face twisted.  
  
"So you can't touch him."  
  
She still seemed confused, before she sighed heavily, her little shoulders bowing sadly. "Okay." Her sadness went back to confusion as she looked back up to Quinn.  
  
"I can't even touch you here?" She put a finger to the tip of her nose.  
  
Quinn smiled slightly, "you can touch me there."  
  
Madi smiled with new delight, raising her hand to touch his nose. "Good." She said, as if she was satisfied, then she held the book out. "Read now."  
  
Quinn took the book from her, flipping through the pages to the dog-eared one, where they had left off last.  
  
"So what book are you two reading?" Serena asked, going back to cleaning his chest wound, before rebandaging it. Luckily now the air smelled of iodine and not rotting flesh.   
  
"It's a magic book." Madi said matter of factly.  
  
"Oh really?"   
  
Serena looked to Quinn, who tilted the book to see the front cover, which, despite being worn, still read that it was a wedding dress catalog.  
  
"Each page has a different princess on it." Madi smiled, looking at the too thin woman dressed in a finely beaded, milk white gown of silk.  
  
"So who's this?" Serena nodded to the woman, beginning to wrap the clean gauze around Quinn's chest.   
  
"This is Belle. She doesn't fit in in town cause her dad is a crazy inventor. But she's really pretty cause this guy, Gastion, he loves her, but he's a bad man. And there's this prince on the outside of the town who didn't give food to this old lady, and it turned out that the old lady was really a magic, beautiful lady that casted a spell on him that he had to been in love by his twentieth birthday, or he would be an ugly beast forever." Madi smiled. "Quinn used to do them with Creedy, but I like them much better when he reads it to me."  
  
"I see." Serena smiled. "Well, why don't you read some for us then Quinn?"  
  
"Where were we?"  
  
"Belle's dad went out to the fair and got chased by the wolves and then he went into the prince's magic castle and the prince didn't like it, so he threw him in jail. And Belle went out to look for him and she went to the Prince's castle too and found her dad." Madi leaned against his arm, then suddenly realized what she'd just done and pulled back.  
  
"Can I touch you there?" her eyes were suddenly worried. Quinn smiled, "yeah."  
  
Smiling, Madi laid back down against his arm, sighing lightly as Quinn talked, as Serena began unwrapping the gauze around his leg.  
  
"There was a cough from the darkness, but Belle could not see who it was. 'Hello?' she called out 'is someone there?'. 'Belle' came a voice she recognized. 'Belle is that you?' 'Papa! Oh Papa you're alive!' she ran to him, guided by her magic candlestick-"  
  
"She doesn't know it's alive." Madi whispered down to Serena, who faked surprise for the sake of the story. "Oh."  
  
Quinn went on. "'Your hands are so cold. I have to get you out of here.' Belle took her father's hand and held it to her cheek. 'Belle, you must leave this place.' 'Not without you Papa' Belle said. 'I'm old, I've lived my life.' But a noise from behind like a mean wind stopped their talking. 'Who's there?' Belle asked, holding up her candlestick to see. 'Who are you?'"  
  
"It's the Prince!" Madi smiled, informing Serena again. Who nodded.  
  
"'Please, my father is old,' said Belle. 'He's sick.' 'Then he shouldn't have trespassed here!' came a deep, angry voice from the dark. 'Run Belle.' Her father tried to warn her. 'Please, take me instead.' She said. Both her father and the man from the dark were surprised. 'No Belle!' her father tried to stop her. 'You would...take his place?' asked the man from the darkness. Belle looked to her father then back into the darkness, his voice scary to her. 'Step into the light.' She was afraid as a great beast stepped before her. He was at least seven feet tall, covered in hair, with big, mean teeth and sharp claws. But her father was more to her than her own life. 'Yes.' She said."  
  
Madi gasped in surprise.  
  
"'So be it.' Growled the enchanted Prince, unlocking the gate to her father's dungeon and dragging him out by his shirt. 'Belle!' her father called after her, but it was no use. 'Papa! Wait!' she cried back, reaching out for him, but the Prince too fast. 'Please wait!' but soon both were gone. 'I didn't even get to say goodbye...'" 


	3. City of the Dead

City of the Dead.  
Day Three - Inside The Castle  
~  
  
"Quinn?" There was a hand at his shoulder. And he was startled awake to the face of Jared. He shifted slightly, only to feel a weight on his other shoulder, turning to see little Madeline curled inside his under his reslung arm, her head on his chest, sleeping soundly.  
  
"There's someone at the gate." Jared stood back as Quinn began to sit up, cringing before settling back down. "Tell them to go away."  
  
"But-"  
  
"You're in charge. Tell them that there's an army in here that doesn't like to be disturbed." Quinn said, turning back over and nuzzling his head back down to where it was comfortable, kissing the top of Madi's hair gently on his way.  
  
There was a moment of silence, maybe he had gone.  
  
"But Quinn." Nope.  
  
"What Jared?" Quinn just wanted to sleep.  
  
"There's only one person. And she's alone."  
  
~  
Inside The Castle  
~  
  
"Hello?!" Lemoni looked all around at the ruins, not seeing a soul. "Is anyone here?!"   
  
"What do you want?" There was a voice softly from above her, it was hiding behind the hardness of its tone. Shading her eyes, she looked up towards it, seeing a bandaged man standing there, carrying a little black haired girl against his shoulder and a boy about sixteen standing next to him with a rifle.  
  
"Uh, I was just passing through and um, my horse is dead, and I have no where to go. Please. I was wondering if I could maybe have some food? I don't know how I'd pay you." She looked down at herself, reluctantly reaching for her favorite and only gun. "I guess you can have my gun, but you probably have a whole arsenal back there, huh?" She smiled up at the people, but they only looked down at her with cold eyes, making her feel smaller than she already felt.  
  
She felt like a fool.  
  
"Alright, so I'll be off then." She said to herself, then back up at them with all the courtesy possible. "Thanks for your help." With a nod of her head, she turned and began to walk away.   
  
"Wait." Came the hard voice, making her stop and turn back up to them once again. "Stay there, we'll bring food to you." She watched the boy turn to the man and break into a conversation that no doubt concerned her and her situation.  
  
"Thank you." With that, they left from view.  
  
Within minutes there was a sound at her right. "Come over here." Lemoni looked around the wall that sided the walk to the entrance, seeing the boy with the rifle standing behind the man addled gate. She jumped over the wall, noticing that the boy had his finger itchy on the trigger of the rifle, the barrel resting on one of the cross bars of the entrance, pointed at her. Smiling gently, she raised her hands in the air, walking slowly towards him.  
  
The boy was handsome for his age, his brown hair shorn short with dark-rimmed pale eyes glinting even in shadow. He was tall and thin, about her height and persona, carrying an aura of dominance that seemed to ooze from his every pore.  
  
He pushed the bowl with the spoon through one of the slots towards her, Lemoni nodding thanks.  
  
"Much obliged." She said gently, reaching forward and taking the bowl, walking away slowly with her back turned to him. "I'll just be over here." She pointed back to where she had come from, before turning back towards the boy, who panicked and replaced the gun in the crossbars. She held her hands up again, laughing slightly. "It's alright boy, I was just gonna ask you if I should slide the bowl under the door when I'm done?"  
  
The boy's eyes were distraught as they flicked back and forth; obviously, conversations with strangers were a problem. "Sure." He said finally, getting a rise of the spoon from Lemoni before she walked away. She would have laughed, but her stomach was too empty to allow that to happen right now.  
  
The food had tasted good going down, but the sudden abundance of food in her seven-day long shriveling stomach was causing some problems for her. After returning the bowl to the gate, she came back and sat down, feeling the chill of the wind sweep across her skin. She buried her arms beneath her vest, folding them together to try and keep out the cold. She let her long hair fall around her as she balled up, creating sort of a tent with matted and muddy walls.  
  
~  
Day Five - Inside The Castle   
~  
  
It was late in the day, the glowing warmth of the sun having passed beneath the rolling hills, filling the air with the misty cool of night.  
  
"You should be inside." Serena came up behind him, putting a hand gently on his shoulder so as not to startle him. "How long has she been down there?"  
  
Quinn looked at her, then turned back down to where the girl was curled, as she was cutting the skin from her half horse which was now rotting so much they could smell the stench from way up here.  
  
"Two days." Quinn watched as the girl curled her body up tight for warmth, but continued cutting. She had pulled off the horse's skin from his head and broken a piece of its jawbone, striking it with a large rock until she had fashioned it into a knife, then biding her time to carve things into it. After words, she had cut away some strips of hide from her horse's thigh and tied them together with its tail hairs to make a usable thigh sling for her new knife, which she strapped around her inner left thigh. And Quinn had watched her do it all, because for the past two days he had been up here, watching her.  
  
"How long will it be until you let her in?" Quinn turned an eye to her, his gaze questioning. "Well look at her." Serena threw a hand down in the girl's direction, defending both herself and the girl. "She's not exactly dangerous."  
  
"That's what I thought about Van Zan." His death was too fresh in his mind to say it without whispering.  
  
"That man had billions of dollars worth of American armory riding' between his legs when he rode up here. She's got nothing." Quinn looked back down to her, seeing that she had stopped cutting and was now bundled up tight against herself, trying to lock out the prying fingers of the nightly chill. "She'll die down there in this weather and without food, Quinn. She'll die anyway."  
  
He turned to watch Serena walk away, evaluating her thoughts.  
  
*  
  
Lemoni lifted her head to the sound of shuffling feet in the dirt, somewhere in the darkness, someone was coming. Smoothly, she reached for her gun, loading a bullet into the barrel with her thumb and keeping it concealed against her side.  
  
The footsteps stopped, but no one could be seen around her. She could hear them though, their breath was somewhat labored, they were nervous.   
  
"Who's there?" Lemoni spoke quietly, beginning to rise from the ground, keeping a flat hand against the wall as she stood, her palms recently wrapped in horse hide in a vain effort to keep them warm.   
  
"Quinn told me to-" began the voice, but thought the better of it. "He said you can come inside."  
  
"Really?" Lemoni smiled into the darkness, uncocking the gun and putting it carefully back into the crotch pocket.  
  
"Yeah. Come with me." Then there was the sound of footsteps leaving. Quickly, Lemoni gathered up what little she had and ran to catch up. 


	4. Castle in the Sun

Castle in the Sun.  
Day Four.  
  
"She's been asleep all day." Jared said as he sat down next to the blanketed Quinn, whose hands were cupped around a tin cup of badly made coffee from boiled water and petty legumes. It was hardly a coffee at all, more like a weak, terrible soup.  
  
There was water and tomato soup simmering in a pan over the fire, but that was for the girl, if she would ever wake up.  
  
Quinn took a sip of his "coffee" and winced at the displeasing taste, turning an eye to Jared.   
  
"I think she's Scottish." Jared said, turning his eyes towards the table and running his fingers along the cracks. "She sounds Scottish anyway."  
  
Quinn sniffed a laugh and looked at the kitchen walls blankly. "At least she's not another French." Jared looked up and smiled slightly. "I-" but there was an intrusive shuffling as someone came around the corner.  
  
It was the girl, a plaid blanket much like Quinn's pulled around her shoulders, covering her naked torso. It had been too uncomfortable to sleep in her vest. Despite her blood and mud stained skirt still clipped around her waist, she was as clean as she could get and no longer smelled like a dead horse, thanks to the bath they offered her when she had come in.  
  
"Good morning." She mumbled tiredly, smiling through a face of a heavenly restful night.   
  
"Afternoon." Quinn said quietly, shedding himself of his own blanket as Jared rose from his seat and went to the simmering soup. Lemoni just stood by the table, watching the boy with awakening eyes as he hurried to pour the soup in a dish and throw in a spoon, before coming back to set it down in front of her.  
  
"Is it really that late?" She raised a hand up to scratch her head, careful not to uncover anything. Quinn and Jared nodded.  
  
She waited until Jared sat down before she sat down, sniffing the soup with a pleasing look. Tucking the blanket around her to free her hands, she slowly began eating, sipping at the soup unlike the ravenous frenzy she wanted to gulp down the soup with, but she was in company.  
  
There was a long moment of uneasy silence, Quinn's eyes leveled on Lemoni, while Jared and Lemoni both made restless looks to each other and then to Quinn.  
  
"What are you doing out here?" Quinn asked suddenly, taking another sip of his weak coffee.  
  
Lemoni thought about it for a moment, pausing eating. "Running." She said as a matter of fact as she could. "Actually, I came from a castle up in Leicestershire a ways north of here. And this mother of a bitch has on my tail ever since I left. There was something about this place that she didn't like, I can't tell what it is, but she's left me alone so far."  
  
Quinn and Jared both looked at each other knowingly, getting a questioning eye from Lemoni. "What?"  
  
"A couple months ago, we brought down one of them, with the help of some others." Jared said.  
  
"Americans?" Lemoni took another sip of her soup, knowing the answer without anyone giving it out.  
  
"How'd you-?" Jared began.  
  
"I've heard of them running around here. Bald guy, beard, tattoos? Got a name kind of like Trenton Van Dam or something like that, right?"  
  
Jared nodded, while Quinn just stared with level eyes at the girl as she described Van Zan.  
  
"Yeah, I know who you're talking about."  
  
"Denton Van Zan? You've met him?" Jared asked incredulously.  
  
"No. But I've heard Gory talk about him. Poor chap. Have you met Van Zan?"  
  
Jared nodded again.  
  
Lemoni nodded and took the last sip of her soup. "He was off then I take it?"  
  
"Like the wind." Quinn said, dead eyeing the girl, who just smiled kindly and rose from the table.  
  
"This way to the clean up?" She asked, pointing back in direction of the small, adjoining room, but Jared was up and taking the bowl from her hands. "Thanks." She said, sitting back down and watching the boy walk off where she had just about gone.  
  
"Who's Gory?" Quinn asked in a deadpan voice, brows low over his eyes as he was trying to dissect the girl's thoughts and history.  
  
"His real name's Gregory, but we call him Gory back in Leicester. Poor guy, thinks he's a dragon hunter, even though most times he's the one that's hunted." She laughed lightly, then cleared her throat, forcing down Quinn's cold stare. "We have a castle back there, in Leicester, there's only three of us in there. We use to have about two dozen or so, but ever since two months ago, it's been hell. We've been attacked by almost thirty dragons since then. Something's wrong."  
  
Quinn's eyes softened as he became lost to thought. Two months ago he had been in London, two months ago he had brought down the bull. The females were in a state of confusion, no longer having a male.  
  
"So I took off out here to try and see what the hell is going on." 


End file.
